Lurpak Cooks Range

[Gandahar]

OK, we all know the score. Back in the good old days we had the Kit Kat. Then the marketing people got involved. So followed orange ones, chunky ones, minty ones and anything else that could cause sales to rise by 1.45%, at least on that nice pie graph on the flip chart.

Dairy products were not immune to this of course. In the old days there was lard, dripping and stork margarine for baking. And Lurpak butter for your toast to go with that battery hen laid egg.

Now of course even Lurpak has had to go with the times and expand. They have already got tubs rather than packs, lighter, lightest, even more lighter than Helium, all with more and more water in them. Can't say I am too keen on all this. However....

... now they have expanded into the Cooks range.

http://www.lurpak.co.uk/uk/our-products/cooks-rang...

I quite like the clarified butter option. That's going to cut down a lot of hassle on things like sauces and potted shrimps etc. I admire their bravery. I do get the feeling this might be a short lived thing though as no matter how good how many people care anymore about this in supermarkets?

They also do a very good advert.

http://vimeo.com/90980458

Now that is a PistonHeads / 2001 / Space 1999 advert and a half . It was a small step for a pan, a giant leap for pankind ! Sorry...

And it is Lurpak after all. So I am sold. I grabbed a few shiny coppers and mosey'd on down to Tesco's to give it a twirl (squirt ?)

So here it is

http://www.zen141854.zen.co.uk/bottle.jpg


Mmmmm....butter / oil mix as Homer J Simpson would whimper.

Contents here

http://www.zen141854.zen.co.uk/contents.jpg


Rapeseed oil and butter. Good choice from Lurpak, rapeseed is cheaper for them to buy than sunflower oil and healthier for us too. Forgetting the butter for a moment, ahem. Talking of which it is 74% to 23% rapeseed to butter ratio. I wonder how long they took to work out that particular combination with taste v cost ? I bet that was fun meeting on a Friday afternoon when everyone wanted to get home

It's also got some nitrogen in it. Is that the air in the can? The mind boggles. If the marketing department wants to expand further the range perhaps laughing gas for Christmas meals ? You heard it here first.

Anyhow, as Chris Goffey would say " That's what's under the bonnet, lets see what she can do on the open road / table mat !"

Problem is, after buying this Saturn V of the oil cooking world I didn't actually have much to cook it with. I found some steak and cod though, to make a rather unconventional surf and turf.

http://www.zen141854.zen.co.uk/results.jpg

THE DIAGNOSIS

1. The Steak

Ok, I have to admit I do not normally cook my steaks like this. I normally cook them at really high temps on the outside and have them black and blue. But for this I tried to do it as the vast majority would do, medium hot and making the steak medium. I put more of the Lurpak oil on as needed, sort of like a mini Alain Ducasse method to keep it moist. You can see this on the plate.

Result : Not convinced. It tasted ok but it seemed to fall between two stools (Bar not human). Using pure butter would have given more taste at these low temps. However it would be interesting to see how it would do at high temps compared to no oil or a high temp oil, something to try on another day

2. Scrambled eggs

I had hoped it would give a bit or sheen, gloss or slight buttery taste to this so I added some. Normally I would use a spoonful of double cream to stop it getting too thick and making it taste better.

Result : Not convinced. Didn't float my boat, at this point I was wondering whether I was being too optimistic on what I expected. The scrambled eggs were probably a bad choice to let this thing strut it's stuff.

3. Fried Cod fillet.

Cod is a mild tasting fish that cooks well fried in the pan. The frying tends to give it a bit of taste.

Result : Very good indeed. Not only a very good even browning but also with the squirts I did not put so much in the pan, with pure veg oil I tend to put too much in and it ends up wasteful and also a bit greasy. If you look at the fish in the photo again it came up really well.

Taste wise it was spot on too. Far better than oil on its own. With the cod being mild flavoured you could spot the extra butterness the oil gave. But it does take something that mild to let you taste the flavour. Apsaragus might be good which is normally cooked in high temp so brushed with this could give good results.


So what is the summary? Hit and miss, but I think this is a valuable extra in the fridge, just more testing needed. It's a niche product and just need to find it's niche on what to cook. It is however a lot more controllable than oil so you do not use as much.

I did some salmon tonight for my daughter and it browned really well and once again I did not use much.

So I think this is more about cooking results than taste in general, but if it means you can get something that looks good and which means you use less fat, then that's not too bad a deal.

Lets hope people buy it or else it will disappear from our shelves, we will have less variety and we will be all cooking with olive oil with Jamie's face on it come 2016.

[Mobile Chicane]

I no longer buy olive oil. I have a bottle at home, but that's only because I was given it.

Uk-grown cold pressed organic rapeseed oil all the way. Farrington's Mellow Yellow, from Waitrose. This has a 'mustardiness' which really works in any Indian dish.

I've learned (from Rick Stein's India programme) that coconut oil is used a lot as well. I must try that.

Ghee is actually piss-easy to make yourself. Before it was ever available to buy in shops, I'd see Indian ladies in supermarkets buying 10 packets of butter to make their own.

[Chocolate Teapot]

Your kitchen needs a good clean.